One thing that has been on my mind lately is the idea of being outcome dependent, or dropping expectations, while still having expectations for myself. That is, in a situation, I can tell myself, “Okay, whatever happens, happens. Just go with it.” On the other hand, before going into a situation, I will tell myself, “Okay, Kenny. This is what you want. Make it happen.” It seems contradictory to do both, even though there are good reasons for doing both.
On one hand, it is very important to know how to relax, going with the flow, and make the best of all situations. Sometimes, when one is not trying to force certain situations, everything seems to fall into place and happen by itself. Like, when we finally decide to stop pursuing something, that is when we achieve it. ”They always know to come back after you’ve forgotten about them.” It matters not what happens in the end, as long as we learn a lot from trying to get there.
On the other hand, why settle? I know what I want, and I will make it happen. I am certainly not going to back down from a challenge. I will make the first move and many moves after that. No shame, do it confidently (or pretend so). You never know how far you could go (or how fast).
So, do you see the contradiction? Lately, I think my mindset has been, “Okay, you know what you want. Make it happen, but if you fail, that’s okay too,” which is okay, but I usually end up failing it seems.
I once said that every social interaction I have is a chance for me to better myself. It is true. I reflect on every conversation that I have. I consider my body language, my choice of words, topics of discussion, etc, and how effective those were in helping me convey what I wanted to convey. The ultimate goal is to be able to connect with people. Many times, it matters not how smart one can be. One needs to be able to talk and make others comfortable talking to you.
The other day, I went on a date. Did it go well? Sure. How was my interaction? I would say it was pretty poor. Of course, I do know that I am very hard on myself. However, I feel like most of my failures came from overthinking the paradox that I described above. I like to think I can be very confident and have what some call good “inner game”, and that things get better with time because I gain more experiences, but, sometimes, it sucks to fail. Sure, I go on this date, evaluate my interaction, learn from it, and, next time, I am a little bit more successful. But, perhaps if I learn faster, I will stop losing girls that I actually like.
Of course, there is also the time that I tried to seduce a girl who had a boyfriend. That went well. Almost as well but still worse than the time I tried to win my heat of the 1500 meter run. Which was actually slightly better than the time that I tried to prove that I was God. But sometimes, even I have to accept temporary defeat.
